


Sister Mine

by Leni



Series: Cora's Daughter [18]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Background Rumbelle, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: Set post-curse.Zelena's fondest wish has always been to ruin her little sister's life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Polarbearmorgan for the beta!

"Belle," said the man she was trying to free. He put his hand over hers, because the magic didn't impede that objects crossed through the bars, just that the door opened. "It's okay."

She shook her head.

A pair of brown eyes looked at her with resignation. "Just run," he urged. "Leave while you can."

Laughter interrupted them before Belle could answer, but the chill that run down her spine did not change her answer. "I'll get you out of here, Bae."

Her lover's son just stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and exasperation. It was an expression she had seen on his father so many times that, despite the situation, Belle wanted to smile.

"And _how_ will you manage that, little brat?" Zelena growled.

Belle could feel her sister's glare at the back of her head. Taking a deep breath, she turned around. Fear made her heart beat faster, and she had to swallow down a knot of trepidation before she faced her sister while her plan lay in shards at her feet. But she refused to run, and for all that mattered, she didn't move from the spot between Zelena and the cage. "Everything has a price," she said, glad when her voice didn't waver. "What's yours?"

It was an opening gambit she had seen Rumpelstiltskin use a dozen of times. Zelena must have heard the same words, and probably from the same source, as she only chuckled. "It takes two people who have something the other wants, to make a deal," she quoted back. "I have the Dark One's son. What can you give me in exchange?"

"What do you want?"

"Too late to get Mom's love, isn't it?" The giggle was too shrill. Like a little girl who'd broken into her mother's cosmetics and ruined her favorite lipstick, instead of the daughter who'd stolen a heart and used it to bring a curse over their land. "But there's... something else I want. You know what."

Belle paled.

Zelena sniggered at her hesitation. "Not so eager to be a hero now, are we?" She shrugged her shoulders, as if their conversation was a casual meeting of two estranged sisters instead of the negotiation for a man's life. "I understand, sis," she said sweetly, pulling a expression of mock sympathy. "Don't worry. You can go home and this will be our little secret."

Belle shook her head, still shocked at her failure. It had been the perfect plan. To come by herself, armed with the squid ink and the necklace Rumpelstiltskin had given her so long ago. It had been meant to protect her against her mother's magic, but it had held against Zelena's fireballs as well.

After that, it had been a matter of baiting her older sister into coming closer and pouring the ink on her as soon as she'd come into reach.

It had worked on the Dark One.

A single drop should have been enough to render Zelena helpless.

That still had not made a difference. 

Belle had not counted on the spells that held Baelfire to resist blood magic. Not after she'd walked unchallenged through the outer wards. "You knew I was coming."

"Mother always said you were so smart. But I knew better." Zelena smiled. "You're just a rash little fool, poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

The ink still kept her half-sister's body frozen, and would for at least another hour. But that wasn't time enough to research the spell on the locks for the cage. Even if she did have the knowledge, she couldn't hope that her meager experience with magic could compare to Zelena's power.

Only one person had any idea about her plan, and Rumpelstiltskin was trapped in his own study, probably cursing her name and ready to give her hell the moment he saw her again.

Gods, how she wanted to see him again!

This should have been so simple. Take Baelfire back to his father, then convince Rumpelstiltskin that a failed kidnapping was not worth Zelena's life. With his son safe within his wards, Belle had no doubt that Rumpelstiltskin would indulge her. It wasn't like he had cared whether Zelena was caught or she wandered free, not until she had made the mistake of targeting Baelfire.

In the name of his son, Rumpelstiltskin knew only of one fitting punishment.

Belle wouldn't be able to live with her conscience if she stood by while her lover murdered her sister.

It was foolish to cling to some half-buried ideal about forgiveness and second chances, so she didn't. But Belle had already lost the world she'd lived in, the friends she could have made, and now her father. She simply could not stand to lose the last family member she had left.

Call it selfishness, but if Rumpelstiltskin could tear the worlds apart for the sake of one boy (or man, as it had turned out - a stubborn, ungrateful man), then Belle felt comfortable taking some drastic actions of her own.

Decision made, she squared her shoulders. "I'll do it."

Baelfire lifted himself into a sitting position, clutching the bars. "Belle, no," he groaned.

"I'll do it," she said louder, meeting Zelena's eye. "The freedom of Rumpelstiltskin's son, in exchange for your sister's heart. Fair enough?"

Surprise, followed by suspicion, flooded Zelena's expression. "Just like that?"

"Of course not," Belle said easily. She didn't have Rumpelstiltskin's flair for expensive scrolls and ornamental quills, but she could summon a notebook and ballpoint pen, and a quick spell had the two objects floating between her and her sister, writing down as she dictated: "You cannot recapture him. You cannot send anyone after him. You cannot threaten someone he loves and hold them ransom so he'll turn himself in. You definitely cannot harm him, not physically, not mentally, and not in any way your twisted mind can come up with." 

Zelena sniffed, but said nothing. 

This was too easy, Belle thought. She licked her lips, trying to see a weakness in her terms. Then she remembered how Rumpelstiltskin had dealt with several of the most unsavory characters who came up to the Dark Castle and then dared to try to hold the Dark One to hosting rules. "You will not, under any circumstances, transform him into an inanimate object so you can slip through the other conditions."

Her sister scowled. "Behold the Dealer's mistress. You might have learned something under him, after all."

"And in exchange," Belle continued, ignoring the crass remark and hoping her voice wouldn't break as the magnitude of the risk she was taking sank in, "I will let you take my heart. Once you have it... Well, there's no need to add conditions after that, is there?" 

She had no illusions. Before she had left Avonlea, her life had been spent surrounded by those blank-eyed dolls. The whispers about her mother's vault had come long after she understood something was wrong with all those people. They might have been able to talk and laugh, go on hunts or twirl their partners across a dance floor, but there was always something missing in them. Something that grabbed at them and hauled them off in whichever direction the owner of the heart meant to have them.

The cruelty of a stolen heart was not in the lack of anything but surface emotions, but because one became a flesh-and-blood puppet, tied to a stranger's will.

"Here," Belle said, pointing at Zelena and barely resisting the temptation to smack her in the face with the flying notebook. Better that the deal be done quickly, before she could regret her choice. "Do we have a deal?"

"You'll forgive me if I can't sign yet," Zelena purred. "But put it down, and I'll get to it later."

Belle shook her head, laughing at the attempt to cheat her. The moment the squid ink's power vanished, she and Baelfire would be lucky to share the same cell. "There are other ways," she said, picking the floating pen between thumb and forefinger. "Older ways."

The pen became her favorite letter opener. 

"A drop of blood, willingly given," Zelena mused.

Belle walked to her sister, taking her right hand. "Do you agree?" she asked, holding the sharp edge against the soft pad of Zelena's thumb.

"Go ahead."

Zelena's blood. Half of it their mother's. 

Just as red and bright as her own.

Belle could have signed her side, but she sliced at her own hand instead, leaving a second smeared print. It seemed fitting.

The magic of the contract was subtle, but Belle could feel how it threaded through her, leaving little hooks attached to her. Someone without magic wouldn't even feel that much; they'd only be aware of the power they had signed away if they broke the deal. Then they'd watch something the magic considered of equal value slip away.

Belle didn't plan to cheat. She wasn't a stranger to dealing with those more powerful and a thousand times more dangerous than her, and though she didn't expect Zelena to surprise her as Rumpelstiltskin once had, Belle had faith that she was making the right choice.

Anything else would leave her sister's blood on Rumpelstiltskin's hands.

Two wrongs never made a right.

She had learned that the hard way.

Zelena wouldn't kill her. Not too quickly. What else did she have to live for, if it wasn't to take her revenge on the one she blamed for her disappointments? 

As long as she was alive, Belle decided, she would have hope.

Behind her, Baelfire stirred. "Belle, you don't have to..."

"Shut up," she hissed, at the end of her patience.

Rumpelstiltskin had given him everything, and the idiot had responded by running off on his own despite the warnings. If his father decided to confine him to a bedroom in their home, Belle wouldn't blame Rumpelstiltskin.

Right now, she thought she wouldn't complain even if he tied her down and forbade she peeked outside a window after this was over.

"You're thinking he'll save you," Zelena mused out loud, eyes following her as Belle let herself sink onto the floor and lean against the bars. "You really believe he _cares_ about you."

Belle now wished the effect of the squid ink would banish soon. They were at a stalemate until Zelena could unlock Baelfire and their deal would be enforced. She wasn't in a hurry to lose her heart, but couldn't Zelena do her the favor of shutting up while they waited?

Of course not.

"You're a fool, you know."

"You're the one who grabbed the Dark One's child," Belle shot back. "Did you expect Rumple to let you keep him?"

"I expected him to give me his dagger in exchange."

Baelfire sucked in a breath.

At least he didn't pretend Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't do it, if forced to that point.

Belle didn't know why she was shocked. In the back of her mind, she had known that this must be Zelena's final objective: to control the Dark One, to have that much power with none of the consequences, the price for any evil, any atrocity, heaped upon someone else's head. It had been their mother's goal, what seemed only a few months before. "And you'll settle for my heart?" Belle couldn't help it. She chuckled at the idea. "I am flattered, sister mine."

"I can handle Rumpelstiltskin," Zelena declared, and if she could not tilt her chin up stubbornly, the sentiment was clear in her voice. It might be their curse, Belle thought, to confuse stubbornness with confidence. "He might have the power, but I know his weaknesses."

Déjà vu.

"Mother said something similar, once," Belle said, uncomfortable with the memory. It had been near to the last words she'd ever heard their mother say. "I never saw her after that."

Zelena smirked, unconcerned. "Well, it wasn't Rumpelstiltskin who had the best of her in the end, was it?"

Not for the first time, Belle wondered how blind her sister truly could be to Rumpelstiltskin's manipulation. "If you say so."

"Mom had the right of it, though. The Dark One is a fool!" Zelena hissed. "He wasted so much time and resources, and all for this whining brat who doesn't even appreciate it." She let out a harsh laugh, and Belle felt her own mouth twist into a grimace at the realization that the two held an opinion in common after all. "If Rumpelstiltskin won't use such great power as it deserves to be used," Zelena continued, "then I will take it."

But Zelena hadn't come into their lives in search of power....

"A parent who loves their children," she said softly, aware that if Zelena were free, she would fly across the room for her words, "is that such a strange concept?"

Zelena's face reddened with anger. “Love is weakness,” she sneered.

Belle felt herself tremble at the words. 

It could well have been their mother's voice, decisive with that thread of impatience woven through it. Impatient because Belle had been found giggling with one of the younger maids over a storybook, and even more unpardonably, she had dared to protest against the girl's dismissal, claiming that friends should be loyal to each other.

Had she screamed when her mother had wrenched out Hannah's heart? Probably. Had she imagined what would happen, when someone whispered into that beating mass of bright red? What Belle remembered was staring as the girl jerkily turned away, the few steps she had taken, dragging one foot after the other until she'd climbed onto the windowsill. Belle had grabbed onto her skirts, pulling with both hands to get her back onto the floor, yelling her name; and Hannah, tears running thick, a look of horror on her face, had slapped her away.

And then she'd jumped.

Belle remembered watching her fall, but not the noise the body would have made against the ground. Instead there was her mother's voice, serene and steady. Her hand at her shoulder, squeezing in warning when Belle would have sobbed. "This is what happens when you let someone in, my dear. It hurts when they leave... and they always leave."

More than a decade later - so much more, when one counted the years spent under Zelena's curse - Belle finally understood what that little girl hadn't known how to put into words. "Love should always make you stronger," she told both her half-sister and her mother's memory, "even when it hurts."

Sluggishly, the ink still not fully consumed, Zelena craned her head toward her, eyes narrowed. She studied Belle for a long moment, clearly having picked on something she hadn't suspected until now. 

"You love him," she said at last, searching Belle's face for any sign of denial, and scowling when Belle only stared back. "My little sister, the Dark One's whore. _The utter idiot_." Her eyes rolled with distaste. "How low must you sink, sis? Do you close your eyes when he's between your legs, dreaming that he'll love you back?"

No. There would be no point to that.

"Doesn't matter," Belle said.

"Aw. You _pine_ for him. How ridiculously pathetic!" The words were dismissive, but her sister's eyes danced with delight.

Belle shivered. Their mother had looked at her with the same expression, when she figured an appropriate punishment for any little challenge.

Baelfire was staring at her as well; she could feel the weight of his disbelief between her shoulder blades. He whispered her name, but Belle didn't turn to him, unwilling to face his disgust on top of Zelena's sick glee. Did he really believe that because he refused to believe his father was someone worthy of trust, everyone should follow in his footsteps?

A flash of magic flooded the room, signaling Zelena's release.

The smile still on her lips, she stretched her arms above her head with lazy slowness. Throwing her head back and then craning her neck in a circle to restore circulation to muscles held immobile for too long.

Then she came to crouch before Belle. "Let's start."

Belle tried to look away, but her sister grabbed her jaw, forcing her to face Zelena. "I'll play the nice big sister, little one, and do you a favor," she purred. "I'll let you know exactly how your 'beloved' feels about you." Her grin was all teeth. "Won't that be grand?"

Her face twitched at the silence that met her words. But then she shrugged in what could have been convincing disinterest in her nails weren't still digging into Belle's skin. "I'll take your heart, Belle, and then I will let you go. Of course you will head straight to Rumpelstiltskin, and when you’re alone with him, you'll explain you've seen the light. You will tell him how you'd rather join me than endure his loathsome presence one more day." Belle couldn't even shake her head. Zelena never stopped smiling. "And you will make sure he knows how you only stayed for so long, in the hopes you'd find and grab the Dark One's dagger."

"I never-!"

Zelena put a hand on Belle's chest. Right above her beating heart. "Oh, but you will," she purred. "If he has any fondness for you... well. That will be burned away quite easily, don't you think? And if he doesn't. Well, little goose-" with her other hand, she patted Belle's cheek "-won't that just break your heart?"

Belle could have cursed herself for the tears that ran down her cheeks.

Zelena only smiled. "Yes. Just like that."

"Leave her alone!"

Zelena looked up, tilting her head with an expression that didn't bode well for Baelfire. "Ah, the worm speaks up. Hm. That's a problem." She seemed to forget about Belle for a moment, coming to her feet and crossing her arms over her chest, staring at Rumpelstiltskin's son. "I can't cut out your tongue. Can't have you running off with tales either. Quite the dilemma, isn't it?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "But then, good boy like you. There's an easy solution."

A wave of her hand, and a small cup appeared on her palm.

"Drink this, and I won't hurt her. Well. Not as much as I really want to." Her gaze hardened. "She made a deal for your safety. Not hers."

"If it's poison...."

"I can't harm you, you idiot. But this potion-" she held it out to him, leaving the cup floating where Baelfire could reach it "-will make you forget your stay as my guest. Call it my parting gift."

Baelfire glared at her, then looked at Belle. "I can't leave you here," he started.

Barely keeping herself from shouting at him, Belle looked him in the eye. He was behind bars, she was by herself. Rumpelstiltskin couldn't have freed himself yet, or he'd be in Zelena's basement already. Their only advantage was the signed contract, and it would only keep until Zelena decided to risk breaking it. 

Her hand snatched the cup and she shoved it at him. "Drink the damn thing, Bae."

Eyeing her mutinously, he drank.

In the next instant his eyes had rolled into his head, and the cup slipped from limp fingers. Belle gasped, uselessly rushing to her feet and trying to reach him, but a gesture from Zelena had him vanishing before he'd hit the ground.

Belle swept her gaze over the cage, but there was no sign of Baelfire. She turned on her heel, glaring at her sister. If this were her last moment of freedom, she wouldn't spend it cowering. "That's no forgetting potion I've ever seen," she said accusingly.

"Then you've never seen one mixed with a sleeping draught." Zelena stepped closer, her painted lips curving into a satisfied smile as she loomed over her sister. "I think we have pending business, sis."

With no more preamble, her hand sank into Belle's chest.

Biting her lip was useless to contain her scream. It felt as if her chest was burning, while in contrast her limbs froze in shock. But she still raised her head to look Zelena in the eye. 

"You won't win," Belle gasped.

The hand around her heart gave an unnecessary squeeze, making her shriek in agony. Through the waves of pain and instinctive terror, she felt her sister lean closer and whisper, "But I already have."

Belle tried to hold onto her faith, her trust that Rumpelstiltskin would know something was wrong... But Zelena was already laughing, holding up the handful of bright red... and suddenly it was impossible to remember why she'd ever wanted to trust anyone at all.

 

The End  
04/11/16

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love.
> 
> *points at comment box*


End file.
